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I love being mistaken for a medical student

“Are you learning a lot today, dear? Are you going to be a GP too one day?”

My face breaks into a smile for a number of reasons. I love it when, as a medical educator, I’m mistaken for a student while conducting external clinical teacher (ECT) visits.

First, if patients mix up which one of us is the registrar and which is the teacher, it usually indicates they trust and respect the doctor they’re consulting.

Second, it can help put a nervous registrar at ease. We have a chat and a laugh about it afterwards, and I can almost see their confidence level rising.

And third, it makes me feel young.

Before you try to burst my bubble, I know med students are not all bright-eyed 20-year-olds, but I still take it as a compliment.

For the uninitiated, ECT visits are compulsory components of GP training nationwide. Each involves a medical educator visiting a registrar’s practice and sitting in for a session, after which a report is written and kept on file.

There are some registrars who relish the idea of an educator observing and commenting on their clinical performances in a career they’ve only recently started.

They’re usually the same type of people who like doing karaoke without the benefit of inebriation, think nothing of standing up in front of a crowd to deliver impromptu speeches, and apply for reality TV shows.

Most, however, are at least a fraction anxious about their first ECT visit. For starters, having the name ‘ECT’ doesn’t exactly engender comfort and reassurance. Those who chose this initialism might have thought it amusing, but I haven’t seen many registrars laugh about it.

Indeed, one even told me she’d had a nightmare in which she received an electric shock every time she asked too many closed questions or didn’t pick up on non-verbal cues.

The training provider for whom I work has changed the name to ‘FACT’ (Formative Assessment Clinical Teaching). However, the FACT of the matter, as I see it, is that an ECT visit by any other name still smells of fear.

Most registrars relax into ECT visits pretty quickly and find the experiences educationally valuable. By the end of that first nerve-wracking visit, many say things like, “That was great — I wish you could come every week.” A few actually mean it!

I used to be nervous conducting ECT visits too. Back in 2005, when first starting out as a medical educator, I worried that I was too young and inexperienced. What if a registrar asked me a question I couldn’t answer? It took me a while to realise I didn’t need to know everything to be a good teacher, and that getting the registrar to look something up was not only okay, but a valid educational strategy.

In those early days, patients often mistook me for a student, but I didn’t view it as complimentary. I was still young enough to want to look older.

It was a bit like being asked for ID at a club. At 20, many people are miffed to be asked for ID: “There’s no way I look underage!” At 25, they think it’s mildly amusing: “I look underage? That’s pretty funny!” However, by 30, they are desperately hoping that someone, anyone, would mistake them for possibly being a teenager.

I’m now very comfortable being the age I am and have no desire to be a teen again. Nonetheless, the occasional medical student misidentification is not unappreciated!